Kevin Chapman On Working With Person Of Interest's Eclectic Cast

Kevin Chapman, who portrays Det. Lt. Lionel Fusco on CBS‘ “Person of Interest,” loves working with a cast that, on paper, seems mismatched, but on screen, works like a charm.

“If you lined the four of us up, you’d see four very different individuals,” said Chapman of his co-stars, Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson and Taraji P. Henson. With great actors like Caviezel, who portrayed Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ” (and whom Chapman described as “classically handsome”), Emerson, who has played on cult shows such as “Lost” (and whose acting skills Chapman praised) and Henson, who has played in film and television ranging from “Hustle and Flow” and “From the Rough” to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Larry Crowne” to “The Cleveland Show” and “Something New” (“She can play it all,” Chapman said), the show was bound to be a success, and it has achieved that status and then some.

According to CBS, the show has had the highest test ratings of any drama pilot in 15 years. The show has also been lauded for its usage of America’s post-9/11 paranoia and fear. Chapman said that America’s obsession with government interference is something that places like London have already dealt with for years.

“In London, for the past 20 years, there have been cameras on the street, trains, buses…It’s only come to America recently,” he said. “I don’t think people were aware of it; you might see a blue light [on a building] and you don’t really know what it was. I think our show has brought that to light. I don’t think that Americans have been aware of that–that Big Brother is always watching.”

Shows like “24” might have expounded on the immediate vulnerability of Americans during the early part of the ’00s, but “Person of Interest” is exploring the new consciousness of voyeurism in our society. Make sure to watch it on CBS Thursdays at 9/8c.

Monique Jones blogs about race and culture in entertainment, particularly movies and television. You can read her articles at Racialicious, and her new site, COLOR . You can also listen to her new podcast, What would Monique Say.